More On:

DETROIT — The main event of this overloaded fight card occurred right at home plate Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park. It starred a slam-dunk Hall of Famer, a guy who already has Yankees fans fantasizing about his own day in Cooperstown and a man whose family treats baseball the way western Pennsylvania families used to look at the local steel mill.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Tigers legend Miguel Cabrera and Yankees backup catcher Austin Romine kicked off the first of three bench-clearing brawls. Within that brawl, Yankees starting catcher Gary Sanchez punched Cabrera as he laid on the ground wrestling with Romine.

“He can do whatever he wants to,” Cabrera said of Sanchez. “But if he wants to punch me, let it be face-to-face.”

“I was in the dugout and I saw Romine rolling on the [ground] with the other guys,” Sanchez said through an interpreter. “At that moment, just instincts take over, because you want to defend your teammate. That’s your family out there.”

see also

“I think I was trying to pull him off at the time,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said of Sanchez. “He wanted to throw a punch at me when I was pulling him off, but thank God someone grabbed him from behind, because he might have knocked me into the stands.”

If Tommy Kahnle hadn’t thrown behind Cabrera, the young Yankees reliever sending a clear message to the Tigers for Sanchez getting plunked by Michael Fulmer in the top of the fifth, then Cabrera and Romine wouldn’t have gone at it in the fight that brought Sanchez, who started the day at designated hitter, into the scrum and into trouble. Romine and Cabrera fought after Aroldis Chapman, replacing the ejected Kahnle, had finished his warm-up pitches. Romine stood up and removed his mask, and Cabrera shoved Romine and punched him, with Romine counter-punching.

Romine, whose brother, Andrew, plays for the Tigers and whose father, Kevin, played for the Red Sox from 1985 to 1991, and Cabrera offered stories that overlapped yet didn’t match entirely.

“He asked if I had a problem with him,” Romine said. “I said, ‘This isn’t about you.’ And then he pushed me. I felt like he wanted a confrontation, and I tried to defend myself the best I could. I didn’t say a word to him. There’s nothing I need to say to him.”

“First of all, when they threw at me, it was OK,” Cabrera said. “When [Romine] started arguing with the umpire [for ejecting Kahnle], I said to Romine, ‘Calm down.’ He said, ‘Don’t F—— tell me what to do.’ I said, ‘Oh, wow.’ I tried to say something to him like, ‘Calm down.’ And he said, ‘F— you.’

“So when I went to home plate, I said, ‘You got a F—— problem with me?’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I tried to calm you down, and you tried to act tough.’ And he took off his mask like he wants to fight. That’s it. That’s what happened.”

Now it’s up to Major League Baseball to sort through the videotape and verbiage and assess penalties. All three main participants are excellent candidates to be suspended.

Yankees and Tigers brawl on Thursday.

Getty Images

Getty Images

Austin Romine of the New York Yankees is held back by Victor Martinez.

Getty Images

Getty Images

Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers is held back during the sixth inning.